


31 Days of PacRim

by RoryKurago



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: DECFANFIC, December Fanfic Challenge, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-02-28 06:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 9,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2722175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoryKurago/pseuds/RoryKurago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of shorts from Christmas prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ice-Skating (Chuck & Tendo)

##  1\. Ice skating

 

“I don’t _ice-skate_ , Elvis.”

“Look—you know how to rollerblade, right? What am I saying: everyone knows how to rollerblade.” The J-Tech rolled his eyes, bracing both arms in a U against the Ranger’s weight.

Chuck glared at him. “Haven’t had much time, what with the training and the killing kaiju and all.”

Tendo sighed. “It’s really not that difficult, buddy. You’re just over-thinking it.”

“You know I’m from ‘straya, right? We barely have winter. ‘s askin’ a bit bloody much for ice.”

“Welcome to Alaska. That’s all we have.” He refused to cringe at the fresh glare, and cleared his throat, puffing tiny beads of breath onto his scarf. “You’re stuck in the Icebox for another two weeks; you think pre-War TV reruns and Monopoly aren’t gonna get boring in that time? Just try the left leg again. One step at a time—like learning to walk a Jaeger.”

“Walking a Jaeger ain’t nothing like this, mate.”

Tendo ignored that. “Just straighten one foot, and push off with the other,” Tendo coaxed.

“Yeah, yeah, sounds easy when you say it like that,” Chuck muttered darkly. His hands bunched in handfuls of the shoulders of Tendo’s jacket and his jaw set but he complied—and briskly lost both feet. Tendo started hauling him back to his feet with a laugh he couldn’t cut off in time.

Both of them paused to watch Mako float by on custom skates, hands airily clasped behind her back.

“Yep, nah, stuff this,” Chuck announced. “I’ll be inside with Max.”


	2. Mistletoe (Stacker & Herc)

2: Mistletoe

 

There’s mistletoe hanging above Stacker’s door when he finally gets back to his quarters. He’s not sure who it’s supposed to catch. He’s not sure who put it there—it might have been Mako. She’s adopting certain Western customs with mildly concerning zeal. But it might have been the Weis, or even Tendo. They could _all_ use a little levity after this year.

Either way, he catches Herc’s arm before the other Ranger can walk on and points to it wordlessly at Herc’s raised eyebrows. Herc grins and joins him on the step.


	3. Watching Holiday Specials (Weis & Mako)

 

##  3\. Watching Holiday Specials

 

The Weis aren’t much for watching Christmas Specials. That said, there’s a _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ Christmas episode one of their crew dug up from somewhere and a mash-up of Special reruns on the SyFy channel later.

Which Mako vaguely mentioned being a big thing in the British shows Tamsin used to love. Which Mako hasn’t sat down to watch since Tam— (The hospital is great, but they don’t get good TV.) And Tamsin is so tired these days, even when they’ve been better lately.

All of this, she vaguely remembers mentioning to one of the triplets. (Fluro yellow slat-shades; Hu.) Once. A while ago.

But they descend on her the moment she sets foot off the helicopter, and Jin’s chasing off over-eager techs while Hu catches her up on the gossip and Cheung gets the elevator—then suddenly they’re outside her quarters and Cheung informs her they’ll expect her at eight, bring popcorn—

And it’s maybe, probably, exactly what she needs.

So she doesn’t complain when she ends up in the middle of a dogpile in their quarters. Or that the triplets decided on the fly to make it an impromptu pyjama party. (Or laughed off her request to wait while she fetched her own, and thrust a set of washed-soft checked pants and a tee at her. Pointed to the bathroom. Laughingly chided her not to look in the medicine cupboard.)

She doesn’t comment when Cheung inconspicuously nudges the volume up to cover an inquiring knock on the door. Or when Hu symbolically wedges a chair under the doorhandle. (But she smiles.)

It’s more about debating the physics of EVAs, someone’s leg warm and bare thrown across hers, too much rum in the eggnog, and calculating the perfect angle to get popcorn into Jin’s open mouth when he falls asleep partway through…

But it’s nice. It’s warm. It’s…actually not very Christmas-y, but she likes it anyway.


	4. Snowball Fight (Chuck, Striker & Cherno Alpha)

##  4\. A Snowball Fight

 

Chuck thinks it’s funny to bunch up snowballs and throw them at the back of Team Cherno’s heads when they’re not looking. (Because he’s a few bolts short of a bucket sometimes, and it makes him feel alive.)

He finds it less funny when him and his dad are walking Striker into the water, getting used to the sharper sensations through the suit feedback in case they’re needed to reinforce the northern line, and half a bloody avalanche ploughs into the back of her head.

They spin Striker back, and there’s Cherno – picture of innocence – with the rest of it balled up in her mitts.

Striker shrugs snow off her shoulders and tells the Kaidonovskys to buckle up.

It’s not their most dignified performance in Varied Terrain Evasion, and the techs complain it’s raining under her wings for days, but it’s _so_ worth the earful from Herc (Pentecost, the WG Reps) for the photos.


	5. Overly Bundled-Up For The Weather (Hermann & Newt)

##  5\. Overly Bundled Up For The Weather

 

“Dude, _what_ is with the gigantic coat? It’s like sixty degrees at worst.”

“Newton, it is forty-three degrees. Don’t exaggerate. Where _is_ that manifest? If those _damned_ transporters have mislaid my blackboards as well as my clothing—”

“Whatever, bro. You look ridiculous. That coat’s twice the size you are. What’d you do, raid an army surplus store?”

Hermann paused in scouring the half-unpacked laboratory to peer coolly over his glasses at his new labmate. “It was gifted to me by the Kaidonovskys,” he bit out delicately, “if you must know, when I mentioned to them that the box containing my winter garb has somehow ended up in Dubai.”

Newton laughed shortly. “Aw, dude, that’s adorable. They’re, like, adopting you. Next thing Sasha’ll be spoon-feeding you goulash. Come to think of it, wouldn’t mind if she spoon-fed _me_ goulash; that woman is _fierce_.” He trailed off leaning his elbow on a yet-to-be-opened equipment crate, staring into space.

“Yes, well,” Hermann muttered, eyeing him with disapproval. “Some families are more caring than others.”

It was only a footnote. A careless remark, directed more to himself than to Newton. But the other scientist caught it anyway, and Hermann turned his head deliberately so as not to see the look of startled pity.

He did not, _did not_ , want _pity_ from Newton Geiszler, of all people.

“Don’t you have specimen deliveries to oversee on the landing pad?” he said snippily.

“I… uh, yeah,” Newton mumbled. “Yeah, I do. I’ll just… go… do those.”


	6. Planning A Family Party (Mako & Raleigh)

##  6\. Planning A Family Party

 

“Raleigh—”

“Sshh. Tendo’s handling it.”

Mako frowned up at her co-pilot. “We’re supposed to be helping to plan the Christmas party. Vanessa is waiting for us in the conference room to discuss the details.”

“I promise you,” Raleigh said, taking a step toward her in the close confines of the maintenance closet, “Tendo’s got it covered. He took Felix down there to meet Gottlieb’s kid. We’ve got _at least_ fifteen minutes.” The dull red of the smoke detector light over their heads was enough to pick out the glint of teeth in his grin.

Mako raised an eyebrow, but one corner of her mouth twisted up despite herself and she leant into the hand running up her spine.


	7. Putting Up The Stockings (Cheung, Jin, Hu & Crimson Typhoon)

##  7\. Putting Up The Stockings

 

Marshal Bae is almost purple in the face. “ _What_ are _those_?” She points up at Crimson, and really Jin can see what her problem is.

“Stockings.”

“Kind of.”

“Gloves, really.”

“Couldn’t do actual stockings, you know—”

“Three of us—”

“—two feet—”

“—but, hey, you know: three arms!”

She glares at the three of them. “I want them taken down _immediately._ ”

They peer up at their Jaeger, hands in pockets. Considering. It took the crew weeks to find the materials, time, and designs.

“We have a lot of followers overseas,” says Cheung.

“We wanted to go a little international this year.”

“Give our global fans something festive.”

“Think of the merchandising.”

“Promotional possibilities.”

“Funding appeals.”

She’s not getting any less purple. He sees it in his brothers’ faces too: if she gets any redder—

—she’ll have an apoplexy or something and they’ll lose a Marshal—

—and that would be bad.

“And if there’s an attack?” she says, lasering in on the one potential flaw.

Hu shrugs. “It’s just cloth.”

“It’ll tear right off.”

“Easy as grease-paper.”

They keep a straight face while she slits her eyes, sniffs viciously, and then stiffens her spine. “They come down today.”

The triplets mouth agreement and wait til she walks away – heels clacking – to look up at Crimson and the ‘stockings’ hanging from her arms.

They’re not coming down.


	8. Decorating The Tree (Mako, Tamsin & Stacker)

##  8\. Decorating The Tree

 

Tamsin only has a little tree in a red pot on the table beside her hospital bed – allergens and repressed immune systems and words Mako doesn’t understand yet – but she presents her co-pilot’s adopted daughter with a box of tiny silver, green and gold baubles and tells her to go to town on it. It’s the first tree Mako’s ever had, and she’s not sure she’s doing it right. But when she looks back Tamsin gives her a big thumbs up backed by a massive grin. She looks more see-through than she did when Mako met her, but her eyes are sparkling like live wires in the rubble of Tokyo and she doesn’t seem to have noticed that her lip has cracked and bled.

Sensei does; he reaches out and presses a white tissue to the split, dabbing up the blood and reaching for the green plastic cup of water with his other hand. When he looks back at Mako his expression is muddled as if he doesn’t know whether to smile or cry.

Mako turns back to the tree. (So that she doesn’t see if he does either.) She is determined to make this the best tree ever, to stick the smile in Tamsin’s eyes and brighten the cloud that hangs over Sensei’s head.


	9. Ruining the Holiday Dinner (Herc & Chuck)

 

##  9\. Ruining The Holiday Dinner

(AKA Herc, Chuck, four stolen chickens, twenty J-Tech crewmen, and a partridge in a pear tree) 

 

Some farmers out west sent two hundred chickens to the Shatterdome. (Dead; dinner; free—a gift.) It’s more fresh meat than Herc has seen in a while. (It’s a more positive gesture from the locals than in longer.)

So when Chuck, who has always been particular about dry-meat, (who knows that Marshal Braithwaite’s punishment for any funny business will be exclusion from the bounty,) is implicated in the disappearance of four, Herc is bemused.

Saving up a stash: nah, selfish.

Feeding the dog: better fuckin’ not. (Also unlikely.)

 

The issue doesn’t resolve itself in the next two days.

No freezer yields a sudden treasure.

No amount of scowling or interrogation even cracks Chuck’s poker face. (And it’s nowhere in his dreams, so Herc doesn’t see it.)

Maybe it’s because he’s a teenager. Maybe it’s because he’s a little shit sometimes.

 

But come the twenty-fifth—he’s not at dinner. And Chuck never turns down a good feed.

He’s not in his room, the Rec Room, the observation deck, or somebody else’s room.

People ask but Herc just shrugs. He has an inkling though.

When the daytime duty crew off the deck wander in, it finally ferments into an idea. He knows. Of course he knows. Maybe not where the chickens are but Chuck, sure, and he’d wager his ration book they’re one and the same.

 

There’s half a dozen ways into the hanger; he picks the one running past the deck-techs’ office. It’s empty; kettle cold, half the radios missing. He pretends not to see the names listed on the nightshift roster.

 

They’re not in the break room. They’re not in Spectre’s bay, or Nomad’s. (Still Nomad’s; no replacement yet.) Not in any of the empties.

It doesn’t surprise him to find them at Striker’s feet. Doesn’t even surprise him that there’s twenty-odd people, a Ranger and a dog sitting around on crates and the floor, or that amongst the (pilfered) metal plates of re-con veggies and greens, and bottles going around are the chickens. (Roasted; seasoned; properly carved. There was a kitchen hand involved, and Herc’s torn between finding the traitor and letting it slide. But it’s Christmas.)

Herc stopped just out of sight; not here to intrude.

He judged it well: not a one of them jumped to attention. (Not even the greenies they inherited from Coyote in November.) Max twitched his nose into the air and peers in Herc’s direction but Chuck seems oblivious:

He laughs when someone challenges him to another Christmas cracker, pulls a face when he loses, and then saves the prize packet from sailing into a plate of mashed potato when the tech laughingly bounces it off his head in recompense. He snaps the rubberband at her in retaliation.

She did it with the edge of teasing in her laughter, but just to cut her legs out Chuck unfolds the paper crown and puts it on anyway. It’s electric pink. It looks god-awful. He still looks happy.

Someone offers him a brown bottle but he shakes his head and passes it along to another tech. This one has a shaved head and lines of a thunderbird tattoo creeping down from the arm of his t-shirt. He’s not one of Striker’s.

This is two crews – Striker, Spectre and the floaters— _and_ a Ranger and a dog. Having their own makeshift Christmas dinner of stolen chicken and black market beer at the feet of an eight-hundred tonne robot. Did Chuck make that happen? The crews don’t fight, but there’s plenty of rivalry.

The chicken, he guesses. A peace offering and a lure. Clever boy.

He’s not 100% on _why_ Chuck’s choosing to eat in here over eating in the mess.

He figures it probably has to do with the fact that Chuck can eat with Max in here. (Probably.) (Or with the booze. Or with the techs getting rowdier in here than they do under the Marshal’s all-seeing eye.)

One of the techs slaps the table (crate) for quiet and reads out a cracker joke. It’s one they’ve heard before; the chorus of answers if followed by groans and bits of paper at his head. Chuck’s in on it. (Fitting; there’s paper scattered around him like he was responsible for one too.)

But he’s laughing. He’s happy—really, genuinely happy, for something other than a kaiju-takedown or a weapons upgrade on their Jaeger.

Herc hasn’t seen that in a long time either.

The smile appears on his face of its own accord, and he doesn’t even notice it’s there.

He retreats.

 

Doesn’t see Chuck pick up on Max’s attention, and raise his eyes to follow the dog’s. Doesn’t see the bottle Chuck raises at his back, or the fact that if he’d walked over and sat down there might have been a truce all round for the day.


	10. Hot Chocolate (Tendo & Allison)

##  10\. Hot Chocolate

 

They’re sitting on a bench drinking cocoa. It’s dark, but it’s only five o’clock and it’s snowing and Allison’s eyes are brighter than the sun as she describes the specs of the 2.5 Sting Blades in development on Kodiak—hand gestures like karate chops, and so much techno jargon Tendo wonders if sometimes she doesn’t forget he was a Bridge-Op/ferry-op/dropkick kid pulling crates off the back of trucks— But it’s what he likes about her.

She breaks off describing charges-resistance-alloys to reach over and wipe away a drop of chocolate caught in the moustache he’s been trying on for size and her voice is a low hum (honey and ginger) as she says, _you’ve got a little…_ Her fingertips brush his cheek, and just for a second she’s smooth skin and rough hands, one giant flake caught on a strand of her hair, and the corner of her own brown-stained lip curved up into a smile.

This is not the moment he realises he’s in love with her. Or the moment he realises he wants to marry her; swears off moustaches; or decides their children will be smart, beautiful _and_ so damn stylish they’ll make Gucci weep. (So long as they get his fashion sense and their momma’s hazel eyes.)

But it’s the start.


	11. Secret Santa Exchanges (Yancy & Raleigh)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yancy's Secret Santa thinks she's being hilariously clever, Yancy defends his right to comfy undies, and Raleigh is scarred.

##  11\. Secret Santa Exchange

 

“…what is that.”

Yancy glanced back from examining himself in the mirror. “My Secret Santa present,” he said, straightfaced.

“I can see that. What the hell is that pattern?”

“Adorbz. It’s adorbz.”

“…You don’t get to sit with the LOCCENT interns anymore,” Raleigh said flatly.

“Aw, come on, Rals, they’re cute.”

“They’re dumb. And potentially triggering.”

Yancy shrugged, hands on his hips. “You know what the girls said:—”

Raleigh clapped his hands over his ears and ducked into the bathroom. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“You’ll hear it later anyway,” Yancy called after him.

“Doesn’t mean I have to hear it now.”

“Better if you do,” Yancy singsonged. “They were taking bets on what your reaction will be if they start hitting you with the puns over dinner.”

“You’re wearing Hardship boxers, bro. There is not a _thing_ they can say that hasn’t already run through my head in the last thirty seconds.”

"I’m wearing them tonight."

'Tonight' is a big meeting with the brass. Like, legit big. Dress blues big. (With the threat of mess dress included just to salt the wound.) Not optional. Objectives and projections for 2019. Very official. Very dull.

It’s the worst possible place Raleigh can think of to be stuck sitting for five hours with his mind stuck on innuendo, big goofy cartoon-looking kaiju, and his brother’s junk.

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m wearing them,” Yancy persists. “I have to. It’s a Secret Santa.”

“No, Yance.”

“She looked so earnest, Rals. You shoulda seen her.”

 _“No_ , Yance.”

“They’re cotton.”

“Yance—“

“And the waistband fits well.”

 _“Yancy_ —“

“And so comfy.”

“Yancy!”

“…what?”

“You’re not wearing them to the meeting.”

“…why not?”

“Because I have to keep a straight face, and if I know you’re wearing _those_ I’ll lose my shit halfway through the opening address.”

Yancy shrugged. “So don’t think about it.”

“That’s even worse,” Raleigh said, flinging himself onto his bunk. “That’s like saying _don’t think about the giant city-crushing seamonsters_. Now all I can think about is giant city-crushing seamonsters. Like that one.” He waved a hand the boxers—and the goofy, cartoon Hardship waving its hands on Yancy’s thigh with _BANZAI_ splashed over it in big yellow characters.

Yancy glanced up from buttoning his shirt and pulled a face at him. “So don’t laugh.”

“With those?” Raleigh lifted his head from the bed just enough to shoot a black look at Yancy’s boxers. “Impossible.”


	12. Unwrapping Presents (Sergei & Caitlin)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas 2016 in the Icebox brings its own challenges

##  12\. Unwrapping Presents

 

Sergio sat at the edge of the bed in the quarters he shared with Caitlin—staring at It. He only picked It up yesterday, on a whim. No pre-planning, no forethought. That was the way it had to be to stop it bleeding through in the Drift, spoiling the surprise, invalidating the whole endeavour. He’d had to wait until Cait was in the shower to even _begin_ this undertaking—

But It refused to be wrapped.

A three-year veteran of air combat, two combat deployments against sea monsters the size of apartment buildings—and he was being defeated by a CD case. A CD: music he knew she liked. Digital might have been easier but he knew she liked the tactile things. The tangibility when so much of her work was ephemeral. Metaphysical.

So.

Now he had to wrap it, waiting until she was in the shower because she was scarily intuitive (even without the Drift). (Cait said she spent so much time hiding her own damage she could always see it in others. Sergio thought she spent so much time worried about her damage she could see her sparks.) It was the wrapping bit that had him stumped. He never did the wrapping at home.

There’s too much sticky tape; two papercuts and counting. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Mama d’Onofrio never let anyone touch her holiday supplies. Never taught any of them kids how to emulate her, neither. He thought he’d been doing pretty well up to this point. She’d approve of the paper at least:

Heavy gsm with a subtle pattern. Matte, not shiny.

But getting it to heel to his orders was goddamn impossible.

He took a deep breath.

_You can calculate the approach angle for a Tomcat in a Saffir-Simpson Category 1, but you can’t wrap a CD, d’Onofrio?_

_Take that corner. Fold it in. Atta’ boy. Pin it. Tape—no_ tape _it. Tape it_ there. _What are you doing! Sharper angle! No, no, that flap’s getting away—_

He flung it away with a hiss of disgust and jammed his finger into his mouth.

Three and counting.

“Just put it in the player, love.” Cait stood in the doorway wrapped in a towel. Droplets of water edged down the sides of her face from her hair and caught in the edges of a barely-there smile. “Thank you for the present. The paper’s lovely. But,” she said, turning away to grab a second towel for her hair. “I always hated unwrapping them. The uncertainty was murder.”


	13. Building a Snowman (Stephanie Lanphier & Kennedy LaRue)

##  13\. Making a Snowman

 

“Do you want to build a snowman?” She sits at the end of Stephanie’s hospital bed, her dark hair draped in a thick plait over her shoulder. Her edges are fuzzy like a snowflake.

“That’s a stupid movie, Kens.”

Kennedy smiles softly at her. “But it’ll be fun.” She pats the blanket beside Stephanie’s foot. “Come on.”

The Ranger shifts restlessly. “It’s late. And it’s dark, and there are nurses and guards every two feet just outside.”

“We don’t even have to go as far as the sentries,” Kennedy says softly. Her cotton pyjamas are lighter than Stephanie’s. But maybe that’s the light; the medical bay is dimmed to an artificial twilight so late, and all the other beds are empty. This is a world of green shadows and dull silver. In it, Kennedy’s eyes are shadowed and her light freckles blur into a darker skin tone. Her lips are salt-cracked.

Stephanie closes her eyes. “No, Kens.”

“Steph,” Kennedy wheedles, and her voice is soft as a fresh snowfall: “I heard it’s been snowing since last night. There’s two fresh feet already. You could use some fun.”

Stephanie opens her eyes.

Kennedy’s hand rests on the blanket by Stephanie’s shin and her other is loose in her lap. Except it isn’t—her left sleeve hangs empty. “You could use some fun,” she repeats, and her edges are fuzzy.

Stephanie’s throat is tight, her eyes are burning, and her left side is on fire. The morphine is wearing off. She closes her eyes. “I said no, Kens.”

“Aw, you’re never any fun in winter. I practically had to drag you out of the dorm on Kodiak. I _did_ have to drag you out of bed.”

“I _said no, Kens,_ ” Stephanie bites out and her voice now is rough as a mid-sea extraction from a sinking Pod. She’s twisted onto her side, blankets pulled tight and catheter in her elbow swiveling painfully. Squeezing her eyes shut so she doesn’t see. Can’t see.

It feels like a breath ghosts across her eyelids. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

Kennedy’s brown eyes are an inch from hers when they open. She intends to be angrily defiant—snappy and sharp and ‘brusque’, the profiles put it—but it’s Kennedy, she’s _right there_ , and Stephanie’s left side is pressed into the mattress and it’s _burning_. She doesn’t say anything.

Kennedy’s features compress with sympathy and she lies down and lays an arm over her co-pilot, just below where blanket covers skin. It feels like snow falling.

“Hush, love,” she says as Stephanie closes her eyes again – this time to block out the light creeping through her co-pilot’s edges where she lies lengthways alongside Stephanie on the hospital bed. “It won’t always been like this.”

The morphine is wearing off, her left side is on fire, and the heart monitor beside the bed is starting to speed up.

“It won’t always hurt like this,” Kennedy whispers. An alarm goes off. A nurse is coming. Stephanie breathes like the counsellors at the Academy taught them in mediation and lets her head rock forward to where Kennedy’s forehead would be. The air is cold.

“We should build a snowman,” Kennedy says reflectively. “One last time.”


	14. Recieving Horrible Presents (Hermann & Newt)

##  14\. Receiving Horrible Presents

 

“Bongos.”

“That’s what they’re called, yeah—”

“I _know_ what they’re called, Newton,” Hermann said snippily. “I simply do not understand why, of all things, you would purchase me _bongos_ for Christmas.”

“Secret Santa, man. Nobody knows what to do for that. It’s a tradition of _what-the-fuck_ , _who-knows_ and _welp-here-goes-nothing_.”

Hermann stared at him frostily. “Newton we have been sharing a laboratory for a year and corresponding for several

Newt shrugged. “Hey, dude, they’re mathematical, _and_ musical. You like maths and music. It could help you, oh, I don’t know, loosen up a little? You could _seriously_ use a hobby.” His tone wasn’t accusing; at least, he didn’t think it was.

But Hermann went white around the eyes and his nostrils flared. “ _Music_ has notes. These things make _noise!_ And I do not need a ‘hobby’, as you put it. I have a job to do – several, in fact, including assisting with my impending _marriage_ – and it is of tantamount importance that my _work_ be completed with the utmost celerity. I do _not_ have time for your _absurd fits of childish whimsy._ ”

Newt stared. That was more words than Hermann had directed at him in one go since the Great Entrails Debacle in May. He was trying to decide if the recoiling sensation in his chest was hurt or dislike but Hermann was already turning away with a half-assed apology for being so brusque, _but really, Newton_ , and Newt just stopped caring.

He took them back and replaced them with a can of lemon air-freshener left bluntly in the middle of Hermann’s desk with a big black bow and a giftcard ( _Merry fucking Christmas, stop complaining all you can smell is kaiju guts)._

 

The bongos didn’t leave. The online vendor has a no-returns policy, and Newt had identified the slimy sensation as bruised feelings.

The cure for those, his mother taught him, was music.

He played those freakin’ bongos at five AM every Thursday in the middle of the lab as part of his ‘Salutation to the Sun’. Hermann got the Marshal involved. Salutation was moved to six AM. Newt added Yoruba chanting, and made it louder. Hermann was displeased. Mysteriously, Newt received a voucher for three free crocheting lessons at the culture centre in town and an apologetic look from the lab tech who presented him with it. He went along completely unironically and had a blast.

He might've been imagining it, but Hermann looked a trace sourer than usual as Newt recounted all the rad tricks Alvis taught him with two lines and a crocheting hook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, you're a jackass, Newt.


	15. Sleigh Ride (Stacker & Tamsin)

##  15\. A Sleigh Ride

_Somebody_ found the stack of Creepers from motorpool and hijacked them.

Somebody called it ‘shenanigans’ and tested the resistance of the Shatterdome’s new flooring.

Somebody worked out that it’s very low resistance indeed—and declared it Sledding Day in the Staging Area.

This is very unorthodox.

This is probably illegal.

In fact, Stacker is sure there is a statute or regulation against this somewhere. He’s extremely tempted the fourth time someone tries to shove a Creeper at him and declare it a 'Crew Cohesion Exercise' to go and _find_ that regulation and shove it up their collective arses followed by his very-regulation boot so far they’re spitting paragraph numbers (because _somebody_ also smuggled a crate of rum into the Shatterdome in the last week, and _Lord_ isn’t that list of ‘somebodies’ building up)—

But Tam is having fun.

It’s not exactly sleigh bells and snow. (Ain’t no ‘Crew Cohesion Exercise’ neither.) And hell if Stacker’s getting down on his knees and sliding across the Jaeger bay floor (in front of thirty howling J-Techs and the Ranger probationers he and Tam are supposed to be showing the ropes).

But Tam is having fun. And it’s been so very, very long since Tam had good clean fun. (That didn’t involve alcohol, or making someone look like a jackass by blitzing them and leaving them in the dust for making ignorant comments.)

She flies off, skidding down on her knees across the bay like she’s wake-boarding on oil.

A voice in the back of Stacker’s head with a thick, slow Australian drawl says, _yeah, nah, mate…_

Tam comes careening back on the return, whooping loudly. Dovetailing into the voice is a flicker of memory—Tam and Luna skidding down a snowy slope on a blue plastic toboggan with hair flying into their mouths as they throw their heads back laughing.

Tam overshoots Scramble-and-don’t-stack-it Alley and scatters techs like ten-pins. Amid the chorus of cheerful _sorry, sorry, sorry!_ she gets her legs under her and then there’s a Creeper in his face again.

Her face is flushed, her eyes are glassy and there’s a bit of hair stuck to the corner of her mouth.

 _“One_ go,” she orders.

He’s pulling the frown Luna always teased him was less their father than it was Sandhurst instructors, but he’s taking the board, and even Tam slyly jibing “Aw, come off it, Stacks: it’s called a Creeper; you _know_ you want to ride that” as he lines up the run-up can’t drown out the throaty chuckle at the back of his head that sounds nothing like Luna.

 


	16. Blizzard (Yancy, Raleigh & Jazmine)

##  18\. Blizzard

They’re standing on the porch, rugged up to their eyeballs. Or Raleigh is.

Yancy shucked his clothing the second they got back to the house, but he wasn’t able to pry Raleigh away from the very edge of the safe zone.

Even in the lea of the house, the wind is trying its best to tear them away from the house and from inside Yancy can hear his mother shouting at the police through the telephone. She’s getting frustrated and half of it’s coming out French, which is driving her even more out of her mind.

Yancy is thirteen. Raleigh is eleven.

It’s the first real blizzard of the season—the worst they’ve ever seen. And Jaz is out there somewhere in it.

“Rals,” he says, nudging his brother. “There’s nothing we can do. Let’s go inside.”

Raleigh stands nose to the wind. His cheeks are tracked with red. (Scratches. Beading blood. Streaks of sap. Marks of their fumbling backtracking through the woods before their father swept out of the white like Batman and scooped them back to the house before plunging out into the maelstrom himself.) It came up so suddenly. She’d been right behind them. She stopped… she stopped to look at… a squirrel. She screeched something about a squirrel, and ran back towards the stream.

Raleigh won’t leave the porch. “We lost her!” He’s two octaves below keening. “We lost her, she’s lost, Dad’s going to kill us…!”

Yancy is too old to be a superhero. Too old to wear a cape, to old to charge around old factories waving torches and pretending he can save the innocent from everything every time. He’s never felt more helpless.

He puts his hand in Raleigh’s. The mittens dull the sensation of Raleigh’s fingers seizing it, but not the pressure. “Dad’ll find her.” He says it with more conviction than he feels. Raleigh looks up at him anyway. He says it more strongly. “Dad _will_ find her. Come on. Maman’s gonna worry herself sick—we should go inside.”

Raleigh’s feet don’t move. His mouth trembles but his jaw is set. Stubborn.

It’s a Becket trait.

Yancy jerks his head at the door. Raleigh’s eyes follow. Slightly ajar, their mother’s voice spills through the crack: her hysteria has devolved to the rapid-fire French she takes to their father when the content matters less than the tone. She wields it like a weapon. _Find my child._

Find my sister, Yancy thinks. Come on, Dad. Find her.

Gripping Raleigh’s hand, he pulls steadily to the door.

\- - - - - - - - -

Dominique can’t get them past the stairs.

She gets them showered, and changed, and even manages to force a mouthful of toast past Yancy’s teeth—but she can’t get them past the stairs.

She gives up. Yancy hears her pace the living room until the couch springs finally squeak and the living room falls silent. The wind outside rattles the glass panes, and trees scratching on the windows make Yancy wish with a sudden sharp pang somewhere behind his ribs for the steady security of their tiny apartment in Budapesth, where the only sound was the rattle of the radiator and the occasional swish of cars passing. Dominique taps her fingernails on the coffee table. She paces. She taps. Raleigh falls asleep leaning on Yancy.

At some point, his head slips down so he’s sleeping half across Yancy’s knees.

At some point, their mother picks up her cross-stitch. This one’s two Rosellas on a gum branch (a gift from an Australian colleague). Yancy hears her separate threads; the odd _punc_ sound as the needle pops free of the cloth. She curses softly in French as she pricks herself. Throws the frame aside.

Yancy sleeps. There’s a tread in his spine.

He dreams about snowmen and little girls in blue parkas curled up in squirrel dreys lined in fur and feathers and membranous softness he can’t name, swaying in pine trees two hundred feet tall.

He wakes. This is not the stairs. There is a knobbly thing sticking into his spine—but it’s a knee. There is a blond head in front of him. There are four legs tangled with his own. There is not enough space in this single for three.

He doesn’t care. He tucks his head into the back of Raleigh’s neck and nudges Jaz’s knee out of the small of his back.

Storm’s not over. The wind is still trying to tear the roof off. Downstairs, his parents are arguing again. Outside, snow hits the window panes with such force it sticks to the glass. Sooner or later, something will crack. He pulls the quilt higher over the three of them and closes his eyes.


	17. Cuddling By The Fire (Sasha & Aleksis)

##  19\. Cuddling By The Fire

 

“Aleksis.” Sasha frowned at her husband across the fire. “When I said it would be nice to take a rustic holiday—this is not what I meant.”

Aleksis spread his hands. “Why not? We have cave, fire, a fresh roast… Where are we lacking?”

The ‘cave’ was a hollowed-out space created by wedging Cherno’s leg against a rocky outcrop and scooping out snow until they had a place big enough to stretch out and build a fire. The ‘fire’ was several emergency flares taken to the collapsed remnants of a wooden fence that proved not too wet to burn. And the roast—were you aware that the quickest way to catch dinner is to stomp a Jaeger’s foot down right beside a rabbit warren and scare half a dozen to death just as they fled for more stable pastures?

The storm had chased off their spotter escorts, and the damage from the last battle to comms and navigation had evidently been incorrectly repaired.

Disoriented, they… well, sat down and waited out the weather. Some forward-thinking tech had thought to stash a change of clothes and a socket wrench in a small locker inside the Conn-Pod after the last time they were damaged after a battle and separated from their ride home by weather.

Providence had supplied a satisfactory meal (more filling than the protein bars and MREs in the Pod)…

Sasha…could think of more useful places to be. But Aleksis had a point. They did not lack much in the way of essential comforts.

She pursed her lips—and then nodded. “You are right, my love. We do not lack.”

Nudging a bone into the fire, she crawled across the cave and peeled away one side of his coat. She rewrapped it – and his arm – firmly around herself, tweaked her position a few degrees, and then relaxed.

“But,” she said presently. “I would still like a proper holiday. Somewhere with a bed.”

Aleksis’ laughter rumbled through his ribs into hers. “Yes, Lieutenant Kaidonovskaya.”


	18. Badly Singing Christmas Carols (Matador Fury)

##  21\. Badly Singing Christmas Carols

 

It’s zero-dark-twenty, Michoacán is a hellzone, there’s a ban on cook-fires, and someone down the far end of the rifle line is singing.

You can’t leave: your squad is lying in wait to ambush a convoy coming at the only bridge over this ravine for sixty miles. You’ve been lying in a trench for two days. You were supposed to bug out to a town twenty klicks west yesterday to help hold another bridge but the insurgents blew it trying to get it back from D Company. This is now their only option. So here you sit. ( _Marrones,_ said Iberra when the orders came through, shrugging.)

He’s been at it for an hour. Singing.

You know who it is – that guy from Basic. He’s made it all the way to Amazing Grace—and you’re ready to stand up, walk down the line and crack him in the nose with the butt of your carbine.

“ – _twas grace that taught~ my~ heart~”_

You dig you back into the gravel of the trench, calculating distances. You want coffee. Or about a galleon of water. Or—

“ _Silent night~, holy night~_ ”

It’s too far.

“Ay, hermano!” you call down the line, quiet but carrying. “Sabes que quiero por navidad?”

“Un poni?” Iberra mutters beside you, slouched back against the trench with his hat over his face. In the faint starlight, you can just barely make out his outline. Maybe it’s not too far. The trench is probably deep enough…

“Paz?” grunts Madero as you scuttle past him.

The conscript looks up at you when you make it to his post, and his eyes glitter in the black. He’s fucking grinning.

“Sí,” you say. “Paz. Y _tranquilidad_.” You grit the last part out like a curse, and Javi just grins in the dark, letting his head rock back against the trench lip. His teeth show more cleanly than his eyes. You still want to hit him in the face with a carbine.

You are not friends.

You haven’t done the things that will make you Matador Fury, or land you in prison.

You have never heard the word _Jaeger_ and it will be eight years before you even know why you should.

“Silencio,” you mutter, and you know that he hears. “Quiero _silence._ ”

He shrugs and makes a show of checking his magazine despite the fact that the squad to a man has done that at least three times since they dug in.

You don’t know that this will not be the last pitched battle you will fight in your lifetime.

But you do know who you’ll probably die alongside.

You know Javi. You know him well enough to know he’s the kind of man to start singing to lift his spirits, and raise those around him—and he knows _you_ well enough to wait until you’re back at your own hole before starting up on _Hark The Herald Angels._ And he knows you hate carols, well-executed or otherwise. He knows you hate the optimism.

Iberra chuckles into his hat at your grunt of disgust.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Madero bites it when the ambush finally rolls around.

 

Iberra shortly after, grabbing a returned grenade to pitch it back at the cartel gunmen for Round II.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When the firefight is over and the rebels retreat (are forced) back to the other side of the ravine by the detonation of charges strapped to the underbelly of the bridge, reduced to taking potshots at the occasional head that pokes up from the squad’s trench, you stand up and walk the length of the trench to where Javi slumps against a trench wall, facing towards the ravine this time. Dawn is coming as you drop to the ground beside him. One of Suarez’s cigarettes hangs lit from two fingers and a wrist hooked on one knee. Suarez won’t need them any more.

“Quise un poni, cuando era niño,” Javi says reflectively. He takes another pull on the cigarette. You don’t remember if he smoked in Basic.

You held the bridge.

You know who you are going to die beside. It just won’t be today.

Ten years from now, you will call the colour the sky is _kaiju blue_.

Sighing, you take the cigarette from Javi’s hand and drag on it. You speak English; it seems appropriately cynical. “Christmas songs, hey.”

This shitstorm began on the eleventh, and you’ve been out here two weeks.

Javi lets out a sluggish stream of smoke that’s measured enough for him to not be cussing out the furrow carved through his cheek by rock shrapnel and takes back the cigarette. “Sí.”


	19. Putting Up The Lights (Chuck, Herc & the J-Tech crew)

##  23\. Putting Up The Lights

 

Every year the crew puts up the lights on the 'dome Memorial Wall. It doesn't mean what you think.

\- - - - - - - - - - -

You are sixteen, and the crew have a game. Less a game. More of a ritual.

They call it _putting up the lights_ and it isn’t what it sounds like. It’s the kind of thing that makes you sick at heart and fills your veins with lead.

 - - - - - - - - - - -

You are eighteen and you have the game figured out. You help an elite squad of four particularly slippery, light-fingered bastards steal half a dozen bottles of spirits from a supply depot. (You don’t wonder at how conveniently close to the back door the crate you lift them from was.) You’re still not invited to join.

 - - - - - - - - - - -

You are twenty, and you have never been permitted to take part in the ritual. This is for the crew.

You are many things. You are brave, and strong, and highly intelligent, and _Commander_. But you are not crew.

You aren’t sure if the exclusion stings or it’s just your nerve-endings recovering from a bad tech test with the new circuitry suits. Your heart leans against your calf and you decide they can have this. This is one thing. You don’t need this. But you watch every year.

 - - - - - - - - - - -

You are forty-five and you've been invited to take part in the ritual every year for two decades. These memories of being barred are not your own but they are yours, the same way the memories of a Kiowa descending in your school sports field and the crunch of your nose breaking as Raleigh kicks you with a steel-capped boot are yours.

You have never taken part in putting up the lights until December 2025.

But on the allotted day, December 19, you stand with the other dregs of the Corps in that hanger, pour a shot in memory of every dead face you carry inside you from the beginning of the War, add it to the hundred others on the bench under the Shatterdome Memorial Wall and set it alight.

A drink for everyone who has passed ahead. A bank of lights against the Minute of Darkness, when every light in the ‘dome goes out in remembrance of dark days. Putting up the lights for the dead.

 - - - - - - - - - - -

_You are nineteen, and you don’t understand why the crew look so irate when you say you want to put up a light for your uncle._

_They look at the Crew Chief. The Crew Chief looks at a female deck-tech, who doesn’t look at anyone, and flatly tells you the crew only put up lights for people they_ want _to remember._

_You still don’t get it._

_You go looking in the next Drift. You get it._

_This is the one year you don’t watch the crew. Instead, you go to a quiet pub in town and order two shots. Arms folded on the bartop, you study them for a minute._

_Then you drink both._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #I CANNOT WRITE FLUFF #it got worse #send help #the crew is legion #don't think about all the people who've died #don't think about wall-to-wall plates made of metal and stone and scrap carved and painted and burnt with the names of the names of the faceless #don't think about the families left behind #or the fact that once the Working Group shuts down the Jaeger Program every life that burnt up in fighting for humanity's right to exist#will be invalidated by the leaders' decision to call it all a mistake and hide #send help


	20. Crappy New Years Resolutions (Herc)

## 29\. Crappy New Year’s Resolutions

 

There’s a new sheet of paper up on the J-Techs’ notice board when Herc walks by.

He’s supposed to be meeting the Crew Chief on deck to inspect Striker’s maintenance log for the week and sign off on routine dismantling of her Stingers—but the Chief got a planeload of new hands from LA a week ago and he’s still breaking them in, picking out the weak (the brassy, the too-ballsy, the just-not-cut-out-for-this-go-home-and-fix-scooters-kid). Herc doubts he’ll notice if Herc is a couple of minutes tardy.

He skims the list. It’s the J-Techs’ public NY Resolutions sheet. Untitled, of course. (Can’t officially own to some of the point on there: _streak the hanger,_ for instance _._ )

Most of it’s pretty standard.

_Lose weight_

_Smoke less_

_Pay attention on deck and stop banging me f*kin fingers_

They’d be pretty easy to name by handwriting, some of them, but courtesy dictates no one look too closely.

Others are more thoughtful—or optimistic.

_Fly a Hawk_

_Kiss a Ranger_

_Be braver_

Written in blue ink near the bottom (above ‘ _say “hello” to him’_ ) is one that pulls him up short. It’s less the resolution than it is the editing to it:

In a pragmatically-sloppy, slanted hand is written,

                        _Forgive_

Someone has added a red asterisk. The handwriting there is rushed but brutally precise.

                        _When it’s deserved_

The printing is familiar. So is the kick in the guts.

 

Herc is on time for his meeting. Chuck’s already in the bay, hair still wet from the pool laps he bowed out of lunch to do, talking filters with Striker’s Assistant Crew Chief. (Max is a fur puddle at his feet, getting as close to the cold glassy floor as he can to beat the December heat.) The ACC glances back when a tech nudges her and nods in Herc’s direction; she points to the Chief’s desk under the stairs. Chuck gestures up at Striker to get her attention back and they’re off again.

When she turns her head there’s a blue biro holding her bun in place.

There’s another in Chuck’s hand being used as a pointer for a maintenance chart.

Herc doesn’t look too closely at it. But it isn’t blue.


	21. Making A Childhood Wish Come True (Jazmine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10 points about Jazmine Becket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It got away from me.

##  24\. Making A Childhood Wish Come True

 1.   

Jazmine Becket is two years younger than her brothers.

 

2.

She hates them. She hates them for leaving her out in the cold, for needing to save the world, for being brothers, for being so freakin’ good at what they do. She also hitchhikes to Kodiak from Boston and fights past security to see them. (Their uncle lives in Massachusetts, she will not take handouts, and the jobs she manages to find do not pay enough for airline tickets these days.)

 

3.   

Every interviewer asks the same questions. Mother, father, childhood. Always ‘so your brothers’. How many times do they ask before she gets sick of it and says, do they actually want to talk to her or are they just tired of being stonewalled by Yance and Raleigh?

No one asks how many languages she speaks, what her childhood wishes were, or why she hates the snow.

 

4.

She finds the furthest country she speaks enough of the language to get by in, where she doesn’t have the vocabulary to talk about the things that happened, and learns to say _I don’t understand._ It snows there—but her co-workers learn not to comment, and change the channel on the weather reports. It doesn’t have anything to do with Richard Becket driving off in a snowstorm so his children couldn’t track him down when they finally got home from work and school.

 

5.

She has degrees in business and textiles. She needs both. Working in the office of an import/export business out of the capital brings her the little news of the PPDC she needs. Until Yancy dies. She runs deeper.

It’s snowing when the news comes through; only Milena tuning the radio away from the weather means they catch the SBS broadcast. The thump of a sheet of ice sliding off the warehouse roof and shattering on the pavement in the silence makes Jazmine flinch. It’s not the fact that the capitol is snowed in for three days that makes her hate it. It’s not Raleigh lying to her as a child that if she could catch a snowflake perfectly on her tongue she could make a wish, or the snow melting down the back of her collar when she fell over trying.

When the storm clears she runs—before the reporters can find her.

 

6.

Pentecost will not order Raleigh to Drift with her so General Krieger does it for him. He promises Raleigh any position he wants-- _after_  they make absolutely sure Raleigh-Jazmine is not viable. 

Twelve hours on a plane from where she was to where he is. She is one sibling closer to being an only child; nobody managed to find Yancy, but they don't tell her on the way in that nobody's quite sure they found Raleigh either.

There’s a cracking, splintering sound in the back of her mind when she lays eyes on him for the first time in three years. It sounds like ice sliding off a roof and the death of her faith in the Corps. He's there but he isn't, and neither, he shows her - unconsciously, unwillingly - is Yancy. Anywhere. Ever. She peels out of the Drift lab screaming, leaving her brother grey and shaking in the other chair, and if she leaves a piece of herself to replace the bit she takes of him, she doesn't feel it tearing away.

This time when she runs she doesn’t leave an address.

 

7.

Her Uncle always knows where she is. She sends cards. She wonders, sometimes, how many times he’s sent something back that missed her because she’d already moved on.

Once, a journalist finds her. She doesn’t write her uncle for six months, and when she does, it’s a postcard of a child with an icecream cone flipping off the camera in old-timey black and white. No markers of country or town.

The journalist wanted to talk about Yancy, or learn anything that might help track Raleigh. She didn’t even know he was missing.

Putting words to the postcard after that still doesn’t come easily but she gives her uncle a phone number to call her on, and when she answers the phone she almost breaks down in the hostel lobby. The air smells like wet carpet, filthy backpackers and frying dust from the over-worked central air trying to make the hostel habitably warm, and the new arrivals folding tatty snowdamp maps gesture impatiently that they want to check in, but she motions over the other staffer and curls up under the desk with the handset. With her eyes closed it’s almost like being home again.

She’s moved on for ignoring guests and there’s no number to send him for a while. A backpacker with a Californian accent offers to help carry her pack to the tram. Only when she declines does he say “You’re that other one, aren’t you? The Becket sister.” How many blond-haired, blue-eyed American girls are there in between places like she is? Less than there used to be. Fewer still who get snappy with drunk itinerants saying ten fishermen’s a pretty sweet trade-off for one dumb Ranger. Was she moved on for ignoring guests or for breaking that window with one of their faces?

There’s no number to send her uncle for a while because there’s no number, period.

 

8.

Raleigh is missing for two years before he resurfaces in Red Deer and reminds Krieger of his promise. Jazmine receives notice of the cut-off of Yancy’s pension when it redirects to Anchorage. It’s restored after a month. They still don’t know where she is—but they stop looking.

 

9.

In this new economy, what does Jazmine have that is worth a wage? Degrees in business and textiles. Connections. Smarts. Looks. Her name.

She uses only one of these. New town—satellite town: ten thousand people, a few thousand miles from the coast but nowhere near the Zones for rich, famous, and frightened. Here, the people are just frightened. Here ‘import/export’ means shipments of ration boxes and aid supplies, and ‘managing’ means hauling boxes in all weather, documenting the takings, driving trucks and distributing the poverty. She is barely PPDC. Civilian outreach. It’s not far enough, but it’s the furthest she can get. To go the extra mile she dyes her hair black and swears off alcohol. It only helps when she avoids coastal refugees, Americans, and anyone too vocally supportive of the Corps. They’re the resistance now, haven’t you heard? This time Jazmine doesn’t put anyone’s head through a window but she thinks about it. Then she thinks about cartoons, Star Wars and the silhouette of a cut-out in her soul the shape of her brother. What they’ll do if they drag her back.

They know where she is—they just stopped looking.

She wears an armband over her sweaters when required, goes unstamped whenever possible, and doesn’t draw attention to the dimple in her chin or the way she smiles like Raleigh. It’s getting easier not to smile when everything around her is pulled out of boxes stamped _UN Crisis Corps_ and even with ration books the people she sees are getting skeletal, body and soul: all bony eyes and hollowed out wrists.

She still refuses to learn the word for _Drift._

 _Brother, hero_ —she knows those.

 _Jaeger_ is untranslatable.

She says _I don’t understand_  anyway and turns away to pull the next box off the back of the truck. _I’m not the person you think I am._

A man she grows fond of pushes black hair away from her eyes where it’s become disarrayed under the rim of her touque, and tells her her eyelashes are so pretty catching snowflakes as they work. She pushes his hand away. “Never say that again.”

She has learnt, along the way, that while she could wish away her support in the hopes that without it she would’ve learnt to be stronger, nothing will make her stronger by magic. Not shooting stars, dandelions, or snowflakes perfectly caught. She has learnt to hold onto the things that hold on to her, and made the anti-wish: to be as strong as she needs _and_ value what support she is offered.

Now there’s a number to give her uncle, but when she asks him, he hasn’t heard from Raleigh in eight months.

 

 

10.

When Jazmine Becket is a child, cold and wet and left behind in a blizzard, she catches a snowflake perfectly on her tongue and wishes to be an only child.

Yancy goes fishing for ten men and a trawler. He doesn’t come back. One down.

Raleigh is dead for twelve hours and thirty-eight minutes before the helicopters find them—him and Mako Mori on their escape pods in the Pacific.

For twelve hours and thirty-eight minutes, Jazmine holds her wish like an icepick. She’ll dig her way out of this if necessary. She leaves her armband on the dispatcher’s desk, telling them not to hold her bed, and gets on a plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connects a little to 'Blizzard'. Honestly, Jazmine's so ignored by this fandom. Like, seriously, stop writing about dragons and Driftcest brothers while completely ignoring the canonical sister who actually appears in the movie. Ride or die for Jazmine Becket and Vanessa Gottlieb.


End file.
